


Nameless, Faceless

by vices_and_virtues



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Identity Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 11:00:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vices_and_virtues/pseuds/vices_and_virtues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi has always hated titles, despised them. They are stupid, their sole purpose being to reshape the person behind them into a suitable mold, a symbol. Written for day three of Levi Week.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nameless, Faceless

**Author's Note:**

> My third contribution to Levi Week, guys, hope y'all like it. The prompt was faceless, or "to lose or question one's identity." My writing has not been up to par these last few days, and I'm sorry about that. Title comes from the season five episode of Criminal Minds, "Faceless, Nameless." (I just liked it inverted better).

Levi has always hated titles, despised them. They are stupid, their sole purpose being to reshape the person behind the name into a suitable mold, a symbol. At least, that's how it feels to him.

It's why new recruits tend to say things like, "I thought he'd be taller," at some point after meeting him, usually to their friends in the crowded dining hall when they think he isn't paying attention. He can't blame them, not really. Sometimes when he looks in a mirror, he thinks, "That is not the face of Humanity's Strongest." Drooping eyelids, upturned nose, small mouth, pointed chin. A child's face he sees.

He supposes it's his own fault anyway, this erasure of his personality. It's the way he shuts himself off from others, refusing to show even the slightest bit of emotion, left over from his days as a stupid kid hiding behind the facade of a notoriously fearless thug in the underground. Doesn't give the masses much to work off of, and so they fill in the gaps themselves, with anything appropriately heroic being tossed in. So really, what he hates is the way he has allowed it to get to him, allowed it to dictate just about everything he ever did. The way he allowed it to blur the lines between "soldier Levi" and "person Levi" so much, even he couldn't pick them out.

Not that he ever really tried.

But even so, he sometimes wishes that he didn't have to deal with all this "who am I" shit that he should have left behind when he turned eighteen, and that he could just be Levi, someone that people would actually made an effort to know.

But then he remembers that _he_ doesn't even know who the hell Levi is anyway, all he knows is that he is Humanity's Greatest and who really wants to make friends with (as opposed to idolize and renown and maybe even martyr when the time came) someone like that besides.


End file.
